head to head · open source
serviette vs faiss
serviette has 58,799 GitHub stars, 1,510 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. faiss has 41,159 stars, 4,558 forks, 327 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. serviette leads on adoption by 43% (58,799 vs 41,159 stars). serviette is written in Python under MIT; faiss is written in C++ under MIT. serviette has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, faiss 11%. serviette was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| serviette | faiss | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 59K | ★ 41K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 4.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick serviette if
- You weight community size — 59K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick faiss if
- You want the faiss feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and faiss fits your workflow better
About serviette
serviette is a no code, always up to date RAG server that turns a folder of documents into a chat interface and a REST API with cited answers, built for teams that want question answering over their own organisation's files without assembling or maintaining a retrieval pipeline.
read the full serviette overview →
About faiss
Faiss is an MIT licensed C++ library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors, with complete Python and NumPy wrappers, developed primarily at Meta's Fundamental AI Research group, and it is intended for engineers and researchers who need nearest neighbour search over vector sets that range from small collections to sets that possibly do not fit in RAM.
read the full faiss overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is serviette or faiss more popular?
serviette has 58,799 GitHub stars and faiss has 41,159. serviette has the larger community by that measure.
Are serviette and faiss free?
Both are open source. serviette is licensed under MIT and faiss under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between serviette and faiss?
serviette is written in Python and faiss in C++. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, serviette or faiss?
Choose serviette if you want the larger community (58,799 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose faiss if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.